Electronics for Kids by Oyvind Nydal Dahl

Electronics for Kids by Oyvind Nydal Dahl
No Starch Press

ISBN: 978-1-59327-725-3
Price: $24.95

This is the best book about electronics for kids I have read.  From colorful illustrations to simple explanations and examples, this book makes electronics clear for those starting out.  Every section of this book shares the excitement and fun that the author clearly finds in electronics. 

The introduction prepares the reader for the general format the book will use, what supplies will be helpful, and how to recognize warnings so the reader can have a fun safe time experimenting with electronics and electricity. 

Part 1 Playing with electricity includes chapters on what electricity is, how to make things move using electricity and magnetism, and how to generate electricity. Some of the fun projects in this chapter include making an intruder alarm, an electromagnet, a motor, a shake generator, and turn on a light with lemon power.

Part 2 Building Circuits teaches the basics of circuits and introduces components such as resistors, capacitors, switches, and LEDs.  Basic soldering skills are also introduced in this part of the book.  Fun projects such as controlling things with electricity and building a musical instrument make this an exciting enticing book.  Projects in this section include destroying an LED, lighting an LED, using a breadboard, testing a capacitor, blinking a light, soldering an LED circuit, desoldering (when you want to remove a component), building a touch sensing circuit, a sunrise wakeup alarm, and making an instrument that beeps and boops.

Part 3 The Digital World introduces how circuits understand 1s and 0s, circuits that make choices, circuits that have ‘memory’ and how to combine all the knowledge and skills taught in this book to create a game.  In this section the activities include converting numbers from binary to decimal, and building a pixel color guessing game, a secret message machine, a secret code checker, and an ‘electronic coin tosser.’  The electronic coin tosser doesn’t flip actual coins, but it does generate a random ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ result.  The final project in the book, an LED reaction game, uses the skills learned in each of the earlier projects.  The author included problem solving information after each project in case the expected result didn’t happen.

The handy resources include some tables of information that are useful in identifying resistor values, capacitor values, prefixes used when working with very large or very small numbers, a review of Ohm’s law, and a list of online electronics shops and other online resources.

The illustrators created a visual delight with the child friendly graphics in this book.  Each experiment consists of steps that are fully explained in simple language. If this book were simply a how-to, the excellent graphics and the detailed steps would be wonderful enough, but the author also explains the science underneath in terms kids can understand.  This is truly a must-have book for the budding maker or inventor.  The accompanying artwork and clearly labeled photos make this book an easy to follow fun guide.  I recommend this for parents, teachers, and youth who are interested in technology.   I am really excited about using this in our 4-H Electronics and Electricity project and the Robotics project.

Review: Amadons Outside by Alexander Galati

Amadons Outside by Alexander Galati
ISBN: 9781514441503
Available in softcover, hardcover, e-book
Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Xlibris

Everything is not what it first appears in this alternate world adventure tale.  In the beginning, Jessica is in her familiar town with its daily hardships and the struggle to stay alive in a walled village surrounded by dangerous creatures. Food, water, and tools are in short supply so those In the walled town must make do while the collecks risk their lives outside the walls to trade for and gather necessities to bring back for the villagers.  Jessica soon finds out from her mother, Jane, that Jessica is to be one of the lucky few to take the life-risking journey to the capital city to perhaps find a better life for herself and a way to improve life for her family and community.  She meets Georgia, another young girl of extraordinary talents, who will be her companion on the dangerous journey.  They will find their way using the hand-drawn map Jessica’s father gave her.

Shortly before they are to leave, Jessica’s father disappears along with other members of the group of collecks who risk their lives each day to bring needed food and resources back to the town.   In spite of worry over her father’s fate, Jessica and Georgia embark on the perilous journey to the capital city.

The girls meet many dangerous and hungry creatures along the way and through luck, cleverness and agility are able to overcome these perils.  Once they reach the capital, they find that things are not always what they seem and the threats to their lives and their village have truly only begun. 

The unusual tense was a little confusing at first but soon I was absorbed in the exciting adventure.  This young author truly has a talent for storytelling.  I look forward to more books from this engaging author.  

Review: Wings Over Wendover, Meets the King by Eric Stephen Bocks

Wing Over Wendover, Meets the King

 By Eric Stephen Bocks

 
AuthorHouse
Softcover, ebook
ISBN: 9781504910415
ISBN: 9781504910422

Falcons, nights and magic all in one tale.  This is the third book in the Wing Over Wendover series.  Timmy is asked by his English teacher to run a booth at the Renaissance fair to show his falcon and tell people about falcons and falconry.  Timmy dresses in medieval clothes and has a fun time at the fair showing people Wendover, his falcon.  After the fair is over, Timmy decides to stop at a nearby farm field to fly Wendover.  He ends up bumping his head and waking up in the far past, working as an apprentice to the King’s falconer. 

He soon finds there is a plot afoot and has to decide who to trust and what to do to foil the plot.  This is a chapter book which seems to be written for pre-teens. 

I enjoyed the storyline and the artwork.  The book and cover art is appealing.

Review of 100 Amazing Paper Animal Snowflakes by Marion T. Nichols

100 Amazing Paper Animal Snowflakes

 By Marion T. Nichols

$19.99
Quarry Books
ISBN:  9781631590986

100 Amazing Paper Animal Snowflakes is a wonderful simple craft book for anyone who can hold a pair of scissors.  Before showing detailed snowflake templates, the book introduces Marion and how she came to design such unique snowflakes.  The next sections talk about what kinds of materials and tools you can use and outline the basic technique for folding and cutting snowflakes.  

The snowflake templates are arranged in order of difficulty, from beginner to challenging.  The first snowflake is a starfish shape and is easy to fold and cut with nice results.  The bonus colored paper templates at the back of the book give a quick start to crafting snowflakes without the delay of making copies from the book.  The downloadable templates from the website are a nice resource and the website is easy to use to find and open the snowflake you would like to print and cut.

When I first read the description of this book, I was interested because of the craft and animal connection.  As soon as it arrived I fell in love with this beautiful craft book.  I will be sharing these wonderful snowflake crafts this holiday season.  I have worked and volunteered with youth for more than 25 years and I love finding new crafting ideas for youth activities. This wonderful book has so many possibilities.  I did have to guard the book from wandering off while I was reading and exploring it for this review.  The eye-catching cover shows some of the exciting snowflakes to be discovered inside.

I love the wild assortment of animals to choose from.  My favorite is the elk, but there are so many others, wolf, horse, rabbit, crab, flamingo, that it really is hard to choose just one favorite.    

This book is a great addition to my craft library and it is also beautiful gift for a crafter, teacher, snowflake lover, or animal lover.  I am looking forward to lots of creative snowflakes thanks to Marion T Nichols.

Kathy Johnson is a reviewer for BookPleasures.com and this review also appears on the BookPleasure review site.

Finding Lina by Helena Hjalmarsson, MA, LCSW, LP

Finding Lina
A Mother's Journey from Autism to Hope
by Helena Hjalmarsson
Skyhorse Publishing hardcover, also available as an ebook
September 2013
ISBN: 9781620875957
Price: #24.95

This is a very intense book about Helena's journey with her daughter Lina.  In some places the intensity is hard for me to read because I connect so strongly with many of the experiences that Helena and her daughter are going through.  I recommend this book to anyone trying to understand how living with challenging conditions and situations can be for parents of children on the spectrum.  Some of the paths that Helena has taken have proven helpful to her and were not so helpful for my son.  Going gluten free was helpful to Lina, and to myself but not to my son.  The stress of dealing with the day to day needs of a child who has difficulty communicating what is distressing them wears a parent down and when you add to that the judgmental actions of community members, teachers, nurses, and neighbors, the stress multiplies.  It is tempting to buy copies of this book and leave them anonymously in neighbor's mail boxes or give them as gifts to less understanding school staff.

Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks, by Gail Damerow

Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks, by Gail Damerow
Storey Publishing
2013
ISBN: 978-1-61212-014-0
Price: $24.95

From the beautiful cover photos of chicks and ducklings, to the color photos throughout, and the lovely guinea, chicken, duck and goose eggs on the back cover, this soft-cover book is a delight.

I have been impressed with Gail Damerow’s books on various poultry topics for many years and she has surpassed those efforts in this excellent guide on raising your own chicks from the egg.

Part 1: The Chicks focuses on the live chicks.  This part includes chapters on acquiring chicks, setting up your brooder, managing water, feed and bedding, what to expect as the chicks grow, and hatchling health issues.

Part 2: The Eggs focuses on caring for hatching eggs and how to incubate them successfully.  The chapters in this part introduce the broody hen, how to select an incubator, selecting and caring for eggs for hatching, operating an incubator, determining what went wrong, and how to identify different kinds of hatchlings.

What I like most about this book is the ease of finding information on various topics.  I like the organization of the materials.  The photographs are stunning and the clarity of both the photographs and the text makes it easy to understand what the author is describing, whether it is how to set up an incubator or how to identify a problem such as a disease condition.  I especially liked the section about homemade brooders which talks about using whatever works.  There are some interesting suggestions and some very creative ideas for using various tubs or other items to make a safe and useful brooder.   Using and re-using whatever is at hand creatively is a long rural and farm tradition.  It is refreshing  to see advice that includes conserving materials or money or both.  The frank discussion on feeders reveals the advantages and disadvantages of the various chick feeder styles.

The chart estimating total feed required to bring various poultry to six weeks of age allows a new poultry raiser to budget feed costs in their first endeavor.

The chapter on hatchling health issues clearly describes a healthy chick versus a chick with signs of illness.  From the stance and movement of the chick, to the appearance of the droppings, early assessment may mean the difference between saving your fledgling flock and losing them. This section discusses issues in addition to disease which can affect whether you have a healthy happy brood of chicks or sickly chicks or even lose the group.  Some of the things that a new raiser might not know, such as how too much medicated feed can cause death in waterfowl, or why not all anticoccidial medications work against all species of coccidia, are presented in a clear helpful way. In addition to identifying disease, and watching for incorrect use of feeds or medications, this helpful guide talks about how some  conditions such as bent toes can be corrected if intervention happens at the right time and is done in the right way. 

This is Gail’s most beautiful and informative book yet.  I have already had to protect my copy from being ‘borrowed’ before I was done reading it.  This is an excellent guide for those wanting to raise their own chick or for teaching youth about raising chicks.  I plan to give a copy to the local 4H library since it is such an excellent resource.


 Reviewer for Bookpleasures.com

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA Richard Hill

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA

Richard Hill

List $15.00

Trade paperback 260 pages Also available in Kindle edition

ISBN-10: 1475190832 
ISBN-13: 978-1475190830

Richard Hill’s life story reads like a novel although it is an autobiography.  The accidental admission from Richard’s doctor which reveals that Richard is adopted, starts him off on a journey that will take years to complete.   Richard discusses the complex loyalties, yearnings, and thoughts that he went through before finally deciding to search for his birth parents.  The quagmire of misinformation began with a few falsehoods on his original birth certificate and slowed him down but ultimately he was able to reach his goal of learning who his parents were and to find siblings and extended family. 

At first, when the doctor revealed his adoption, Richard is reluctant to disturb his adoptive parents and also feels torn between loyalty and shock so he chooses not to reveal that the doctor told him.  Finally on his adoptive father’s deathbed, his father urges him to search for his birth parents.  Richard still doesn’t reveal to his adoptive mother that he know he is adopted.  It takes some time and some coming to terms with his own identity in his new family with a wife and child to begin thinking more seriously about searching. 

He runs into the roadblocks that adoptees find when searching for their birth records.  A stranger can do genealogical research and get more information than an adoptee searching for his own roots. 

Some of the techniques he used to confirm his birth relatives are the tried and true methods adoptees have been using for decades while others are fairly new and  can be a useful tool for other adoptees to find their families or at least find out more about their heritage.  Richard includes information on the DNA services he used both to rule out and to verify possible family members.

Richard’s story is very intriguing to me because some of my extended family members are adopted and I have seen the struggles they have gone through in trying to find information on their birth parents.   Even though each adoptees story is unique, there are some common struggles and this book gives both encouragement and some steps that an adoptee might be able to take in their own search.


 Reviewer for Bookpleasures.com